Presentation on Industry-Academia-Bank Model

FEW WORDS

Each year Bangladesh gets 5-6 thousands IT graduates from different public and private universities. Most of them follow the traditional path to develop their career. As a result, job hunting gets the prime focus instead of entrepreneurship development. Needless to say, we need more entrepreneurs for a vibrant economy. Unlike other industry, a person needs to face less entry barriers to become an IT entrepreneur. For an IT entrepreneur intellectual ability can offset the need of huge startup capital. A confident and expert IT person can easily create his/her own avenue with small initial capital. But, in many cases it is really difficult for a fresh graduate or young professional to manage BDT 5,00,000 - BDT 10,00,000 initial capital to utilize their knowledge to start an independent operation. In this regard, SME finance can play a very significant role to empower the youngsters who want to become an entrepreneur. But there should be a systematic approach to channelize SME loan. It needs active involvement of financial institution, university, and industry to develop IT entrepreneur.

STEP BY STEP APPROACHES

A university in association with an IT company can start an Entrepreneur Nurturing Centre (ENC), which will act as a capacity building platform for the students to become IT entrepreneurs. This centre will be managed by the IT company because it has right knowledge and expertise about current market scenario. Bank will finance all operating expenditure (OPEX) from the admission fees of the students as a part of its CSR. Final year students with good leadership quality, excellent communication and presentation skill, and perfect academic track record can come to this centre to develop his/her career. A joint committee comprises members from both university and IT company will select the right applicants. Students will go through a six month training program at this centre. During this period a rigorous evolution method will identify the best performers within 3 months and other students will become ineligible for second phase of this training. Both university and IT company will help these best performers to manage some orders from different companies. These students can strengthen their capacity and at the same time manage initial capital by doing these small scale activities.

STEP BY STEP APPROACHES

After six months all trainees will come up with proper knowledge and initial capital to start his/her own business. Now, if a candidate searches for bank loan then he/she needs to submit his business model, financial plan, and available business deals to joint committee. This committee will decide the right person/s for bank load and recommend him/her to affiliated bank/s. But neither university nor IT company will act as a grantor for a candidate. Bank will pay the same amount of initial capital. For instance, if a candidate has BDT 1,00,000 then bank will give BDT 1,00,000 for a limited period with zero interest. If a candidate able to refund the amount within time frame then he/she will be eligible for next phase loan. This loan will come up with general interest rate and a candidate can ask for any amount based on his/her existing capacity. Primarily, bank will keep academic certificates (original copies), trade license (original copy), and 10% of initial capital as security deposits. A candidate can withdraw all these as soon as he/she develops visible assets. Bank can invest on ENC to increase its number and infrastructural capacity as a part of its CSR activities. Besides, bank can also come forward to enrich the branding activities of ENC.

BENEFITS
University

It can produce skilled human resource No extra operations cost

IT Company

Skilled HR

Increase industry affiliation

Bank

It can sale loan product

It can get scope for CSR

MODEL

THANKS
This presentation is a collective initiative of East West University and NeoSTAR Innovation

Presented By
Mustafa Hussain, Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics & Communications Engineering, East West University Edward Apurba Singha, Chief Executive Officer, NeoSTAR Innovation